London Zoo are building ‘Gorilla Kingdom’ to give their their lowland gorillas the stimulating and naturalistic environment they deserve. We’re the lucky people appointed to help them raise money for it, and that task started with a creative briefing at the Zoo. After a tour of the building site we had an extra surprise in store for the creative team, Bee and Chris - the chance to get up close and personal with the gorillas soon to move in.

Nothing could have replaced the buttock-clenching experience of standing face to face with Bobby the Silverback. Bobby is truly magnificent. He’s similar in size, shape and attitude to a hairy Mini Cooper, and seemed to think that we were staring at his woman (alright I admit I was, but you have to admit she's gorgeous! (that's her, Zaire, above)). He glared at us, he ran at us and he threw a ball of hay at Chris. After standing our ground for several seconds we agreed that he is indeed the boss of us, and beat a hasty retreat.

We came back to the office buzzing. For the rest of the day I could hear the guys enthusing about their experience with our gorilla cousins. And I’ve just seen the concepts – watch out for an award winner!

So I’m going to be on the look out for more possibilities for inspiring briefings. And if you’re a fundraiser, try and get your agency team as close as possible to the cause before they start working on the job, even if you don’t have access to lowland gorillas. I’m sure you’ll notice the effect in the quality of ideas, the creative and the results.

Mark Cook